Arte Abierto Baja
Designed by Sordo Madaleno at Ánima Village, the open-air gallery brings Mexican and international artists into direct dialogue with Baja California Sur’s landscape
This Spring sees the opening of a new art gallery - Arte Abierto Baja – offering an important permanent addition to the cultural life of Baja California Sur where the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California meet against a rocky coastline that is home to a biodiverse mix of vegetation including desert shrublands. Designed by Sordo Madaleno, a third-generation family-run Mexican architecture studio, Arte Abierto Baja introduces an architecturally distinct 180 m² open-air space for viewing contemporary works of art by Latin American and international artists.
Its sunken design, set 4m below grade, is accessed via a 17m gently sloping semi-covered ramp integral to the building's form. The arrival journey is choreographed to quiet the senses and transition visitors from the mixed-use hustle and bustle above. Upon arrival, visitors enter the open-air gallery, suspended between the sky above and the surrounding arid landscape.
Set within over 5m high gallery walls, Arte Abierto Baja offers the ideal conditions for exhibiting large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations. The gallery's pigmented bush-hammered concrete surfaces are timeless and tactile, adding a sense of permanence that encourages visitors to dwell and contemplate. The building’s raw materiality embeds into its desert context.
“We wanted Arte Abierto Baja to be an experience that responds to the beauty of the Baja landscape. The arrival sequence is choreographed to heighten the senses—there's this moment of compression as you descend, and then at arrival, an expansion to the elements. The architecture becomes a frame for the landscape, and the landscape becomes a canvas for large-scale art.”
Fernando Sordo Madaleno
Arte Abierto Baja sits within a wider six hectare masterplan for Animà Village also designed by Sordo Madaleno. The design concept for The Animà Village has been to create a walkable human-scale neighbourhood with a strong public realm and generous planting. The Village is defined by a series of six terracotta pavilions and six open-air squares interspersed with lush desert-adapted gardens that provide shade, cooling, and well-being within a climate that often reaches temperatures of up to 36 C° degrees. Overall, Sordo Madaleno’s approach at Animá Village has been to introduce a permeable organic townscape within an area that has over recent years been blighted with urban sprawl and gated communities.
The plazas at Ánima Village lead to Arte Abierto Baja — a sunken gallery open to the sky, defined by two walls of stone drawn from the earth. Earth and architecture held in tension, readable as a single gesture. Its discreet presence reinforces the project's commitment to openness and accessibility, inviting both planned visits and spontaneous encounters. Here, art, landscape, and climate intersect, transforming the act of exhibition into a spatial and sensory experience rooted in place.
"Arte Abierto Baja offers something the region has rarely had — a moment for cultural reflection away from the commercial energy above. Inaugurated with an installation by Abraham Cruzvillegas, it is both a celebration and an offering to the community."
Javier Sordo Madaleno De Haro
TEAM
Partners: Javier Sordo Madaleno Bringas, Javier Sordo Madaleno de Haro, Fernando Sordo Madaleno de Haro
Architecture Director: Luis Hernández, Boris Peña
Urban Design Director: Jorge Gerini
Design Team: Flores, Javier Paez, José Mendoza, Karla Flores, Marco Calles, Samuel Torres, Ricardo Pérez, Shakti Velio, Thelma Ruelas
Urban Design Team: Anabel Chávez, Jessica Navarrete, Brian Luna, Ilse López, Luis Ortiz, Paloma Fernández
Engineering Coordination: Daniel Jaimes, Krystyna Sokolowska
Engineering Team: Laura Prieto, Óscar León, Sinai Aparicio, Tatyana Herrera
Construction Coordination: Emilio Bargueño
